When the 1957 funeral of the little-loved Hollywood mogul Louis B. Mayer attracted a surprisingly large number of mourners, rival studio chief Samuel Goldwyn advanced a novel explanation.

"The only reason so many people attended his funeral," Goldwyn declared, "is that they wanted to make sure he was dead."

[What comes around goes around: Mayer himself had once expressed a similar sentiment at Irving Thalberg's funeral. (This quip is in fact attributed to Red Skelton, Harry Cohn, and many others.)]